OLA Says CFPB Should Transform Project Catalyst Into Innovation Hub With Real Safe Harbor
Lisa McGreevy, President and CEO of OLA Pens Op-ed for American Banker
In an American Banker op-ed this morning the Online Lenders Alliance (OLA) called for a transformation of the Bureau’s Project Catalyst, which OLA believes has been a missed opportunity for faster innovation in the fintech industry.
“As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau seeks to reinvent itself, the bureau should prioritize strengthening its fintech innovation initiative as part of its overhaul,” said Lisa McGreevy, President and CEO of OLA. “Acting CFPB Director Mick Mulvaney should make Project Catalyst a focus in his pursuit of improving the bureau.” OLA suggested concrete ways to improve the Bureau’s Project Catalyst program:
- An effective Project Catalyst must include a true safe harbor component, so companies are confident they aren’t just setting themselves up for punishment.
- Project Catalyst should also make statements of enforcement policy to help establish the kind of explicit guardrails that open room for innovation.
- The CFPB could play an important coordinating role if it centralized and shared lessons learned from Project Catalyst with other regulatory agencies like the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, the SEC, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., state regulators and elsewhere.
